The invention relates to the field of article carriers and more particularly to article carriers of the wraparound type which include article retaining flaps or gussets.
Various types of article carriers are known in the art. Article carriers of interest with respect to this invention include those of the "wraparound" type for holding bottles and cans, the carrier being formed from a single sheet of foldable material, such as paperboard. Such carriers are characterized in that they are formed having top, bottom, and side panels separated by fold lines. The article carrier is assembled by folding the panels to form a generally rectangular-shaped package with the two outermost panels being joined by adhesive or locking tabs, such as shown in U.S. patent to Pierce, U.S. Pat. No. 3,374,938, assigned to the assignee of the present invention.
It will be appreciated that some means for securely retaining the articles contained within the carrier must be provided. Especially in the case of bottled beverages, a certain amount of shifting of the bottles is to be expected during shipping and handling, which can lead to breakage problems if the bottles are not securely retained within the carrier.
In the early Pierce U.S. Pat. No. 3,374,938, this retaining means took the form of side cut-out openings adjacent the bottom panel. While this arrangement worked well, the ends of the wrapper had no positive means to retain the bottles and to protect the bottles at the vulnerable corners of the package. This prior carrier also used extra paperboard along the bottom panels. Furthermore, the prior art arrangement is generally more adapted to wide, short bottles than narrow, tall bottles.
Various other types of retaining features for article carriers have been proposed in the past. One simple form of article retainer is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 2,425,140 and Australian Pat. No. 121,649 in which a pair of side flaps and a bottom flap are formed on the respective side and bottom panels of an article carrier. The side and bottom flaps are joined by a folding triangular section. When the carrier is assembled, the side flaps lie flat against the side panel of the carrier and are held in this position by the fold of the flaps. The triangular section joining each side flap with the bottom flap is forced inward to cause the bottom flap to be erected in an upright position to prevent articles from moving endwise out of the carrier.
However, such a retention arrangement also has several obvious disadvantages. First, there is a substantial amount of paperboard used in forming the blank that is wasted. In this case, the side and bottom flaps of necessity must be formed outboard of the boundaries defined by the side and bottom carrier panels. Second, the bottom retaining flap is kept in its erected position without direct, positive pressure of the end product containers. If the carriers or containers are shifted slightly, such as during shipping, the side panels may slip, thus allowing the retaining flap to be released accidentally.
It is also known to provide gusset-type retainers for article carriers. Such retaining gussets have generally taken the form of those shown in U.S. Pat. No. 2,371,312 and French Pat. No. 1,307,325 in which four gussets are arranged at the corners formed by the side and bottom panels of the article carrier. Each gusset includes two triangular sections and three fold lines.
The retaining feature is provided by snapping the middle fold over center so that the triangular sections point inwardly toward the articles contained within the carrier. This structure has the same disadvantage of not providing a positive holding feature, since the gussets can be easily released by the accidental shifting movement of the end product containers within the carrier against the folded gusset sections.
It is also known to combine the above-described features of side-panel flaps and gusset retainers. The carrier structure includes corner gussets disposed at the ends on both the top and bottom panels, which act to hold the containers in position when the carrier has been erected. A side flap is connected to both the upper and lower gussets and is folded against the inside of the side panel. The pressure of the end product containers bearing against the flaps is designed to hold the gussets in the erected retaining position. However, this construction suffers from the same disadvantage as previous designs in that the lower gusset sections project outwardly from the body of the carrier when erected. These projecting gussets waste paperboard, and also are likely to get mutilated, deformed and otherwise interfere with one another, especially when a number of these carriers are closely packed as would be the case when placed on a retailer's shelf or during shipping. The carrier of later U.S. Pat. No. 3,815,320 suffers the same type of shortcomings, and in addition does not use interconnecting sections so that a full gusset structure is not formed.